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Shahbaz Bhatti's assassination is a bleak counterpoint to Cairo (Pakistan on the Brink)
The Guardian ^ | 3/2/2011 | Peter Preston

Posted on 03/03/2011 2:07:28 PM PST by mojito

....We may be hoping for good things in Cairo and praying for good things in Libya. But good things, ominously enough, don't happen in Jinnah's "Pure State" (Pakistan) any longer.

Now here's one especially dismal thing among many others, because it tests principle as well as feeble political resolve. Shahbaz Bhatti, Islamabad's minister for minorities, is assassinated outside his home by four assailants who leave Taliban tracts behind them. Bhatti was a Christian, speaking out for an increasingly oppressed minority and ceaselessly advocating the repeal of Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

But a couple of weeks ago, while the world was watching Cairo and Tripoli, his own prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, quietly abandoned any attempt to repeal Pakistan's blasphemy laws – and the death penalty for breaking them. The battling woman backbencher who'd pushed for abolition retreated. The ministries working on amendments threw them away. Blasphemy, as defined in the statute book by Pakistan's last military dictator but one, remains a capital offence.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: christian; pakistan; shabazbhatti; taliban
One day very soon we will wake up and the Islamists will be in power in Pakistan.
1 posted on 03/03/2011 2:07:37 PM PST by mojito
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To: mojito

2 posted on 03/03/2011 2:10:17 PM PST by mojito
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To: mojito

Poke-e-stann has been over the edge since before Zer0 visited.


3 posted on 03/03/2011 2:15:05 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: mojito
"the Islamists will be in power in Pakistan. "

How do we know they are not in power now?

4 posted on 03/03/2011 2:16:20 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: mojito
They'll need to bring in this guy to clean that mess up.


5 posted on 03/03/2011 2:18:34 PM PST by dfwgator
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